By Ema Lynnx
At Fine Arts Paris 2026, Ippodo Gallery will present the work of Daisuke NakanoA Japanese painter who is breathing new life into Nihonga. On his folding screens and washi paper, flowers, birds, butterflies, and foliage unfold in abundant compositions where mineral pigments meet gold and silver. A painting of patience and light, profoundly Japanese in its techniques, yet remarkably free in its expression.
At first glance, the paintings of Daisuke Nakano They possess an immediately delightful quality. They overflow with flowers, birds, color, and movement. A branch sweeps across the space, a butterfly emerges amidst the foliage, its petals seemingly caught in a gentle breeze. Then, as one approaches, the image shifts; and what appeared almost spontaneous reveals an extremely precise construction, made up of hundreds of gestures, patiently applied pigments, and sometimes minute details. It is undoubtedly in this blend of simplicity and sophistication that much of the charm of her work resides.
Born in Kyoto in 1974Daisuke Nakano began exhibiting very early: he participated in his first group exhibition at only 19 years old, at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. Over the years, he developed a personal style based on the techniques of Nihonga, this Japanese painting which notably uses natural and mineral pigments applied on traditional washi paper.
Nihonga, whose literal meaning is "Japanese painting," refers to a pictorial tradition modernized at the end of the 19th century to assert its own path in the face of Western influence. More than a style, it is based on specific materials and techniques: paper washi or silk, finely ground natural mineral pigments, ink, glue nikawaSometimes gold or silver leaf is used. These materials give the works a very particular depth and luminosity, while leaving essential space for emptiness and the breathing room of the composition. Daisuke Nakano fully embraces this heritage, which he reinterprets through compositions teeming with flowers, birds, and landscapes, deeply rooted in Japanese tradition yet resolutely contemporary.
At Fine Arts Paris with Ippodo Gallery
Du 19 23 in September 2026His work will be presented under the glass roof of the Grand Palais on the occasion of [the event]. For his first participation in the exhibition, Ippodo Gallery, based in Tokyo and New York, will occupy booth N25 with an exhibition entitled Quiet Metamorphosis: A Resurgence of Kogei.
The project brings together several contemporary Japanese artists around a common idea: to show how skills passed down through generations can continue to evolve without losing their identity. Ceramics, textiles, bamboo, lacquer, metal, wood, paper, and paint will compose a very current panorama of kogei, a Japanese term that designates a field situated at the intersection of art and crafts.
Within this group, Daisuke Nakano occupies a unique place. He works with fine ink washes and ground natural mineral pigmentsapplied to washi paper. His world will thus create a dialogue between painting and pieces of ceramic, lacquer or textile made by other Japanese masters.
Fine Arts Paris has, in fact, chosen his artwork Dancing Blossoms, produced in 2025 and presented by Ippodo Gallery, among the pieces highlighted to announce the 2026 edition.
Nihonga, a painting that takes its time
To understand Nakano's work, one must focus on his technique.
Nihonga relies on materials that have little in common with contemporary industrial paints. Daisuke Nakano prepares his colors from mineral pigments reduced to powderwhich he mixes with a natural glue called nikawatraditionally derived from animal collagen and diluted in water. He then paints on washi paper, often combined with gold or silver leaf.
The colors don't blend like oil paint. The grain size of the minerals, the amount of glue, the paper's absorbency, and the layering of paints all alter the depth and light. Every stroke counts. Ippodo Gallery also points out that Nakano only creates a few works a year, as his work demands such patience and precision.
In some compositions, the silver leaves are laid side by side in thin sheets. They create an almost imperceptible grid in the background that captures light differently depending on the viewer's position. The painting then ceases to be completely static: it evolves with the lighting and with the person viewing it.
A Japanese tradition, without nostalgia
Daisuke Nakano has a thorough knowledge of the history of Japanese painting, but he never simply uses it as an exercise in quotation. His works evoke, in particular, the legacy of...Rinpa school, which appeared in the 17th century and is known for its decorative compositions, gold or silver backgrounds, and its taste for nature. One can also perceive the influence of Maruyama Okyo, an 18th-century painter who introduced more naturalistic observation into Japanese art. And Nakano uses this story as a readily available vocabulary.
The format of byōbuThe large Japanese folding screen, a recurring motif in his work, spans several meters in width and allows him to construct veritable landscapes into which the eye can enter. Wisteria, magnolias, peonies, pines, peacocks, and cranes then take possession of the space. His website features several such large screens, among which Illuminates All Over the World, Magnolia “Luminous Wind” or, Pine Tree Rising to the Heavens.
But his compositions are often much denser than those of his predecessors. Where traditional Japanese painting often leaves large, silent spaces, Nakano sometimes likes to fill almost the entire surface: forms overlap, colors echo each other, birds half-disappear behind flowers. This profusion creates a surprisingly contemporary feel.
To paint not nature, but its energy
For Nakano, nature is never a mere backdrop. He observes plants and animals attentively, but his landscapes do not seek to reproduce a real place. Rather, they are imaginary gardens, idealized spaces in which different seasons and different species can meet.
His exhibition Painting Paradise, organized in 2021 at Portland Japanese Garden, presented precisely these large imaginary botanical landscapes. The museum described his work as a research around light and the energy of living things, carried out using traditional Nihonga techniques but enriched by a very personal use of color.
In his works, light is essential: it appears in the reflections of a metallic sheet, in the transparency of a petal, or in the contrast between a dark branch and a silvery background. Nakano does not simply paint it: he seeks to make the materials themselves react to it.
This is particularly noticeable in Radiance: Blessed with LightA large screen from 2021 populated with wisteria, peacocks, plants and insects. The work gives less the impression of representing a garden than of capturing its most intense moment, when all forms of life seem simultaneously in motion.
"Nature is always celebrating something."
This connection to living things appears even more strongly in his recent works.
In the spring of 2026, Ippodo Gallery dedicated an exhibition to him in New York. Banquet of Life, his third solo exhibition in the city, organized for Asia Week New York. Eleven new paintings accompanied the transition from winter to spring and then the explosion of blooms.
Nakano spoke very simply about what nourishes his painting: the swelling buds, the wind, the rain, the snow, the birds and butterflies accompanying the changing seasons. For him, nature resembles a perpetual celebration in which humankind is also a part.
This idea prevents his work from becoming merely a decorative vision of Japan. Behind the abundance of flowers lies an awareness of their fragility. Winter is never far behind spring. And beauty is born precisely from the fact that it is fleeting.
From Kyoto to New York, then Paris
Daisuke Nakano's recognition now extends far beyond Japan.
After several exhibitions in his country, notably in Kyoto, Tokyo and Kobe, his first solo exhibition in New York, Burst of Nature, is organized by Ippodo Gallery in 2019. It will be followed by Painting Radiance in 2021 and then from Banquet of Life in 2026.
In 2019, his work Magnolia “Luminous Wind” joined the collections of the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields. It will then be integrated into A Brush with Beauty, an exhibition tracing some seven centuries of Japanese painting.
Her exhibition at the Portland Japanese Garden in 2021 also met with a particularly large audience; Ippodo Gallery indicates that it set an attendance record there.
Fine Arts Paris now marks a new chapter. Indeed, the setting is significant: beneath the glass roof of the Grand Palais, in this venue linked to major international exhibitions that once fueled European fascination with Japanese art, Ippodo Gallery aims to specifically examine this Western perspective on Japan. In the 19th century, Japonisme revolutionized European painting with its flattened perspectives, asymmetrical compositions, and a different relationship to nature. In 2026, the movement is reversed, in a way: contemporary Japanese artists return to Paris to showcase what these traditions have become today.
A garden to look at slowly
Daisuke Nakano's works ultimately ask for something very simple: time. From a distance, one first perceives their brilliance, then the details emerge: a leaf vein, a bird's plumage, the outline of a wing, a variation in the silver of the background. The eye begins to wander, and the space, which one thought saturated, gradually regains its balance. And it is perhaps there that his painting becomes most interesting.
Nakano does not seek to preserve Nihonga as an ancient technique to be viewed with reverence behind a glass case. He uses it as a living language. The mineral pigments, washi paper, gold, silver, and the folding screen remain the same: what he makes of them belongs entirely to his time.
At Fine Arts Paris, among the antiques, old masters and contemporary creations gathered at the Grand Palais, its gardens should thus bring a rather special presence: that of a nature which seems to have momentarily stopped time, just before a bird takes flight or a petal falls.
FINE ARTS PARIS
Formerly FAB Paris
AT THE GRAND PALACE
From 19 to 23 September 2026
